Page 85 of A Touch of Charm
“You don’t understand,” she rasped. “What I’ve done…” She bit her lips to stop their trembling. “What I’ve set into motion. It isn’t something you—or anyone—can fix.”
“Tell me anyway,” he urged, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. “Test me.”
She huffed a laugh, light and humorless, only for it to dissolve into another wave of tears. At last, as though some internal dam had collapsed, she began to speak, her words spilling out in fervent, broken bursts.
“I’ve ruined everything, Andre,” she confessed, her voice shaking with anguish. “Refusing Prince Ralph wasn’t just about myself. It was a blow—a public affront to the Habsburgs. The Transylvanian branches, they don’t forgive. They conquer.” She choked on air as her lashes fluttered, heavy with tears. “And I—I’ve given Baron von List exactly what he wanted. I’ve done it. I’ve played into his hand.”
The silence was deafening after her words fell. Andre sat back, his mind unfurling the implications she hadn’t said but that hung heavy between them. She was right—he understood just enough of alliances, power struggles, and ambition to know what she feared wasn’t far-fetched. Thea wasn’t caught in the web; shewasthe web. Every thread circled back to her, every knot tightening with her despair.
“This could mean war,” she whispered, her voice raw. “A war I caused and that would implicate my brothers. All for… for…”
“For me?” he asked, though he had no need to. The answer hung between them like a fragile grape ripening too soon and rotting on the vine.
She raised her eyes then, amber and glassy, and met his gaze with searing honesty. “For someone I have no right to choose.” Her words cracked as they escaped her, raw and vulnerable.
Andre’s chest burned with the need to speak but fear that anything he might say could make it worse. He reached for her hand instead, slid his palm over hers. Her skin was cold and unsteady—such a contradiction to the fire that burned within her.
“Thea,” he said at last, his voice steady but low. “I know what it is to feel the consequences of my very existence. But this…? This war you fear? It is not your doing—at least, not yours alone.”
“You don’t understand!” she cried, her hands trembling under his. “I can’t undo this, Andre. Don’t you see? There’s no going back.”
“And who says going back is the solution?” His voice came suddenly, sharp and impassioned. “For years, I blamed myself for things that weren’t my fault. Do you want to know what that granted me? Nothing.” He paused, his hand tightening its hold on hers. “When I was eighteen, I fled—a decision that shaped my life. Napoleon’s army…” His words faltered for a moment before he found strength again. “They would not have spared my family if they learned of me—a bastard. The timing of my birth stained us all.”
She blinked at him, speechless for the first time since he entered.
“So I left,” he continued, his words laden with memory. “I removed myself as if that would cleanse their name. I stopped using my full name. I clung to medicine like a drowning man to driftwood because in medicine, science mattered. Skill mattered. Not parentage—never blood.” He leaned closer, his thumb brushing her knuckles. “It was society that cast the shadow, Thea. Not me. Not my family. Just misplaced judgment.”
Her voice softened, tentative, as she asked, “You ran away to protect them?”
“I did,” he admitted, the confession raw in his throat. “And while I ache for what I abandoned, I know it was my only choice. But now that Anna told me about her awful husband, I wonder if I should have stayed. And I’m not running away from you. Not now, not ever—for as long as you want me by your side.”
“And yet I risk everything now,” she said faintly. “My family’s lives. My home…”
“No, you don’t.” His voice caused her gaze to snap to his. “If alliances crumble or conquest is plotted, that is far bigger than you, Thea. They might wield you as an excuse, but it’s not your doing. And you have me now,” he added, his voice softening. “You have my family at your back.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes anew, though something unspoken passed between them—a flicker of hope in the midst of despair. Her free hand sought his, trembling and light. “I’m dragging you into this,” she murmured. “Into me.”
Andre shook his head at once, his thumb brushing the edge of her hand. “You’re not dragging me anywhere. Ichoosethis, Thea. I chooseyou. Whatever comes next—we’ll face it together. Do you want that?”
For a long moment, her dark gaze searched his, words beyond her grasp. Then, as sunlight dappled the leaves around them, she gave the faintest of nods, her lips tilting into something fragile but real.
Andre allowed himself to forget, just for a moment, the weight of his past. Timing, his mother had once said, mattered little. And now, with Thea’s hand in his, he dared to believe she’d been right all along.
Chapter Thirty-One
Andre let Theafind her brother while he brought the discharge papers to Anna, who was standing with a crutch under her arm in the room where he’d found her.
Found her… Andre considered the words. He never expected to find his sister again.
“Anna, there you are!” A short, half-bald man arrived empty-handed but for a smug grin.
This was the husband who’d cheated on Anna and whom she’d caught with a mistress?This?
Andre balled his fists, but Anna squeezed his arm and put on a fake smile.
“Husband…” she said to the man, who was notably shorter than her, and twitched.
His eyes darted from her to Andre and back but when Anna narrowed her gaze, he jerked his head back as if he’d been stung.
